Our Ranch
Grounded in History. Inspired by Nature. Working for a bright future.
Over 70 Years of Sunup
Quarter Horses with a ranching heritage
Sunup Ranch has been Minnesota’s Quarter Horse Headquarters since 1950. From its beginnings as one of the early Quarter Horse breeders in the Upper Midwest, Sunup has been an innovator while holding true to the foundations of the breed.
Located near near Brainerd, Minnesota, the ranch spreads across nearly 700 acres of kettle-and-moraine topography. Along with the horses and the Angus cow-calf herd, the ranch also supports a variety of wildlife including raptors, songbirds, migratory fowl, Blandings turtles, and mammals ranging from bear to deer, coyotes to wolves, pine martens to beavers.
The ranch is proud to host various educational events, clinics and tours of our ongoing efforts to better steward our land and stock.
As we look out to the future, we believe that the more we embrace best practices, the better we leave this place to its future.
About our horses
Our Breeding Program
The Sunup Stallions
Starting with George Paul (a son of Bert), Sunup Ranch has selected stallions from the working lines.
Keeping back daughters of these stallions, the ranch added outcross stallions by Rey Del Rancho, Two Eyed Jack, Watch Joe Jack, Peponita, Zan Parr Bar, Gay Bar King, Mr Baron Red, Freckles Playboy, Joe Jack Red, and Bowmans Smart Jewel. Learn more about our reference sires >
We have also kept back carefully selected stallions from our own program, including current senior sire Zans Tyree Drifter, Sunups Tyree, Sunups Starwatch, Jack Parr Sun, Get My Drift, and Down To Tyree. Learn more about our stallions >
The Sunup brood mares
The ranch’s brood mare band is carefully selected to cross with our current roster of six stallions. We always have a good selection of weanlings, yearlings, started two-year-olds and some seasoned horses for sale.
Sunup Ranch mares are our seedstock: Generation after generation, we select daughters from our best families to keep for our herd. We look outside to select young, outcross stallions from the top performance lines who have written and continue to write Quarter Horse history, the “who’s who” of Quarter Horse families to cross on our mares.
Our Cattle
Giving the horses a job
The ranch’s Angus cow-calf herd pastures in a rotational grazing system, giving our horses a job moving the cattle between pastures, checking fences and pairs. We offer grass-fed beef packages, processed locally.
Our land, our future
Commitment to the land
At Sunup, we embrace best practices that keep our land — and the people, animals, and plants who share it — healthy and vibrant. We are dedicated to promoting biodiversity, protecting soil health, and implementing eco-friendly methodologies, so future generations can enjoy the beauty of our ranch, our community, and our world.
New practices in pasture management started in the late 1990s. With assistance from the NRCS, Greg and Vickie began to implement a more intense rotational grazing system to their pastures in the 2000s.
Both horse and cattle pastures were subdivided, and pipelines added. Cattle now move between nine different pastures and mares between six. The rotational system not only meant much improved forage, but a regular job for the horses. It proved to be a great training ground for young colts to move cattle frequently.
We also participated in a University of Minnesota study on silvopasture best management practices for cattle. Recognizing those practices was one factor In being named county “Farm Family of the Year” in 2012.
Meet the Team
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Vickie Kettlewell
OWNER
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Greg Booth
OWNER
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Barbara Kettlewell
FOUNDER
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Reed Kettlewell
FOUNDER